


Cliometrics

by jan



Category: Peacemaker Kurogane
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-21
Updated: 2007-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:42:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jan/pseuds/jan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for feliciter</p>
    </blockquote>





	Cliometrics

**Author's Note:**

> Written for feliciter

 

 

> Look: what's been left behind is about as meager  
>  as what remains ahead. Hence the horizon's blade.
> 
> _\-- Joseph Brodsky, Seaward_

Someone once said that calculation was a relaxing activity. Tatsu thinks he is beginning to understand, even if he has yet to make a habit of carrying his abacus around with him. If nothing else, he feels calmest when going over the accounts for the day. The familiar feel of the beads, their decisive click-click-click against each other and against the wooden frame -- all this is a form of reassurance, a different kind of rosary.

The accounts are growing complicated -- the payroll changes too frequently -- but they are still the only thing that Tatsu can be sure of comprehending. Here one cuts the days down into lists of figures: revenue, expenditure, a tally of supplies. He wonders if anyone is keeping a tally of the dead.

\---

How many beats in a haiku? Souji makes it a point to control his breathing, school it into an appropriate rhythm. It's too much trouble to do so when talking, though, and sometimes he finds himself tripping over the simplest words: _omoi, kanata, itsuka._ Worst is the way he says _Hijikata-san_ : the breathlessness of the first two syllables giving way to the harshness of the next pair, the dying whisper of the last. _Hijikata-san, Hijikata-san_ , until eventually Hijikata has to tell Souji to save his breath.

"I like the sound of _your_ breathing," Souji says, in a tone so matter-of-fact that he could have been talking about the bag of sweets he had the other week, or the colour of the sky at sunset. He rests one hand just below Hijikata's collarbones. "And the beat of your heart. So steady and regular."

Hijikata says nothing. What is there to say? Souji flexes his fingers against Hijikata's skin, curls his hand lightly into a fist. Then reaches for a cup of tea instead.

"How strange it is, having weak hands." The child-like curiosity in his voice is still there, but there's a new wryness to it, a conscious hint of self-parody. "I didn't even falter when it came to Sannan-- but that was a long time ago. I wonder if my grip is as steady now. You should let me practise more often."

"We're saving your strength for when we need you," Hijikata says. Which is true. Souji's illness is an inconvenience, but not yet incapacitating, and for now they require his skill. Eventually this will have to change -- after the winter, perhaps, when the cold weather will take its toll. But autumn is only halfway here, and Souji still stays in the Shinsengumi compound, enjoying what sunlight there is left.

"Not if I waste away from lack of exercise." Souji drinks the tea quickly, forcing it down; he no longer bothers to grimace at the bitterness. "You know what they say about rusty blades."

Hijikata is in no mood for metaphors. He closes his eyes, reaches for his pipe before remembering that he tries not to smoke anymore. Souji replaces the cup on its tray. "Or perhaps you're thinking of a time before this? More blood and less rust?" He laughs. The sound is as bright and clear as ever, yes -- and also more tired, more knowing. "Nostalgia's inappropriate, Hijikata-san. Sixteen years too late, at least."

As always, there is nothing Hijikata can say to that. He waits. Souji runs a careless finger across the tatami flooring. "You shouldn't think that much has changed for the worse -- not for me, I mean. The weather is nice. The town children still say hello. Yamazaki-san tells Tetsu-kun to buy me sweets, and doesn't realise that I know." Souji pauses, and pours himself another cup of tea. "And you should remember that other things haven't changed: that just because I hold a sword less often doesn't mean I've become any less of a demon. That there wasn't much to leave behind anyway."

There is no bitterness in Souji's voice. He might have been talking about the colour of the leaves, or the breakfast they had this morning. Hijikata opens his eyes. Souji drinks, a little slower this time, and doesn't look up once he places the cup back down.

Hijikata is not a gentle man. But he can be careful, and precise, so he reaches out and brushes Souji's hair back with careful precision and hopes that that is close enough. Perhaps it is.

"Will you write me a poem when I die? A death haiku?" Souji laughs, or tries to laugh, and adds, "You might have to wait and see what season it turns out to be, though. I hope it'll be summer. A drowsy summer afternoon."

Hijikata looks at the paleness of Souji's skin, the green lines of the veins beneath them; remembers an alien coldness in those eyes, the cutting flash of a blade. He can think of a dozen symbols for Souji, none of them adequate. "You have to write your own," he says. He doesn't say, _You already have._

\--

A form of accounting: four summers since Tetsu joined the Shinsengumi, almost three years since Ikedaya, twenty-nine months since Yamanami-- and here Tatsu pauses, surprised at how long it has been, and how clear the recollections still are.

(Half a year until Susumu drowns. Eight months until Kondou is executed. Another spring before Souji dies. Get close enough and the numbers grow irrelevant. Tatsu knows none of this yet, but he already knows that they are running out of time.)

\---

Later that afternoon, Souji watches a dust-coloured cat slink out from the shade of a tree. It lies in a patch of autumn sunlight, rolls over to catch the warmth. Souji sympathises. The air is growing colder, but he maintains the rhythm of his breathing as best he can, keeps time in his head to the tune of a childhood song. Over the months he has learnt that blood does not taste like steel, though the difference is subtle; he has adopted new ways of measuring the time, counting the weeks between fevers or the days since he has sparred. Time moves more slowly, now, but Souji is in no hurry.

 


End file.
